These are the last two books I read, although I only read the first thirty pages of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.
Perhaps I might have enjoyed Miss P when I was younger but now it comes over as a vacuous comedy of manners; sorry if you admire Winifred Watson and prefer her to The World For Sale.
I found The W for S absolutely gripping. It concentrates on just the largest traders in grain, metal and oil which must be a relief to many medium and smaller traders. Blas and Farchy have researched their subject thoroughly and interviewed (in 2019) many of the actors. It paints an unflattering portrait of them and unpicks the thrills and spills in the markets where they made and sometimes lost billions of dollars. Some of the episodes were known to me from my job as an oil futures broker but much of the wheeling and dealing was not vouchsafed to a lowly broker. I do remember their obsessive secrecy and, if I was allowed into their offices at all, I was corralled in a meeting room.
The authors portray the traders almost universally as unscrupulous, amoral, greedy and able to evade regulatory constraints. It also shows them as being fleet of foot, buccaneering, with a capacity to foster long term relationships with their business partners and adapt to changing market conditions; a text book for Capitalists. They venture where less imaginative men fear to tread and, yes, they are all men. It is a fascinating insight and I’m not the only reader to enjoy it, although it may not be your cuppa.
